


in our unsaved bodies— he sighs

by orphan_account



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alexandria Safe-Zone (Walking Dead), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Domestic, M/M, No Negan (Walking Dead), Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23750956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: As it is, Rick’s heart takes to aching.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Rick Grimes
Comments: 5
Kudos: 50





	in our unsaved bodies— he sighs

_ faint trails _

_ of dust we leave behind— he _

_ touches my hand, waits for me _

_ to clutch back _

—  _ Tarfia Faizullah, “Aubade Ending with the Death of a Mosquito,” _

The warmth of Alexandria feels like a Facade to Rick, even after the near six months they have lived there. The problem, he supposes, is that no matter where they go, their ghosts follow.

Lori, in particular, is a spirit that still occasionally haunts his vision. She stands forlornly, looking down at the crops Rick has put his heart and soul into keeping alive; she watches him as he runs his fingers through her daughter’s downy, barely there hair; watches as he moves on, birthing a second heart. Her apparition has shifted, in Rick’s point of view, from that of a literal facsimile, to a personification of the guilt he feels when he thinks of her.

The ache of loss weighs heavy on all of them— it always will, it is a feeling synonymous with living, now. So, too, are the dreams of blood spit up onto concrete and teeth buried in dirt (or something akin to those themes, Rick decides). Such is their routine, the people of Alexandria are left only to devote themselves to material goods.  _ Tasks,  _ both menial and monumental. Survival, with a few luxuries sprinkled on top.

And it is the only way to live, that idea: of devotion regarding the small things. Thankful as he is, as they all are, safety so quickly became an unfamiliar concept. Their comfort now is as disconcerting as its opposite, before the world ended. What haunts Rick, too, is their reliance on things from  _ before _ rather than  _ after _ , as they try to move forward. To be fair, very little has been created  _ after _ , but he still feels his stomach drop a little bit further upon each supply run’s return, of which, less and less fruit, falls farther and farther from its tree. One day it will all run out— those all-too-relied on miracles of modernity.

Sustainability will come in time, or so Rick hopes.

Rick is left alone in the house,  _ his _ house. White walls and cold floors. Michonne left, antsy, cooped up, even in her confidence. He doesn’t blame her, but Carl only flits in and out every so often, leaving him with only Judith for company, cooing gently on his lap and playing with the buttons on his shirt. He enjoys this time with his daughter, but the pack animal that has grown in him refuses the loneliness that comes with the peace.

He sits upright, picking Judith up and holds her to his hip, making his way through the clean, still-unfamiliar building he must call “home.”

Daryl’s on the porch of their group’s other house, leaning against its railing and fiddling with something in his hands. It’s a strange sight, to see him here, and everyone else beyond Alexandria’s walls. Usually it’s the other way around. Rick suspects Aaron wanted a break from looking for new recruits; wanted to spend time with Eric. He doubts Daryl has much to do without that task, hunting being minimally needed, or wanted, by most. Rick doesn’t know how to change that for him, or if it can be changed, but he walks the ten foot stretch between their houses anyway, and sits a step below the porch next to Daryl, holding Judith loosely on his knees.

“Aaron wanted a day off?”

“Yeah,” Daryl shrugs. “Left me with fuck-all to do though.” He slips the utility knife he’d been snapping open and closed into a pocket on the inside of his vest. 

He’d evidently succumbed to social pressure and showered, clean hair and lightly freckled skin sticking out like a sore thumb next to the dirt on his boots and tears in his shirt— unbuttoned rather tastelessly. He glances at Judith.

“Lemme hold ‘er.”

Resisting a smile, Rick hands Judith over. She grasps happily at the few strands of hair that had fallen out of the yellowing rubber band that held Daryl’s hair back.

“She’s getting bigger.” Rick murmurs, adjusting the straps of her yellow dress, worrying absentmindedly about sunburn. 

“Thas’ generally what happens to babies.”

The haughtiness of Daryl’s tone is masked by a sense of peace Rick has only seen him express with Judith— something that had confused Rick, at first. She was a miracle, by virtue of her birth’s repercussions, and an innocent breath of fresh air, but it was more than that. For whatever reason, Daryl softened at the sight of her, hostility and gruffness still present, but pushed aside, replaced with fondness and gentleness. 

Sweat from the afternoon sun prickles at softer parts of Rick’s stomach, joining a layer of dirt accumulated from hours of weed-pulling and planting.

“I’m gonna take a shower. Watch her for me?”

Daryl eyes him doubtfully, “Ain’t Michonne here? She could watch her. Or Carl.”

“Michonne went on a run with Glenn, and Denise wanted to check on Carl’s eye.” Rick stands up, “You’re good with her. Just keep her happy for a little while and I’ll come back and get her.” He doesn’t give Daryl much of a choice in the matter, but when the other man doesn’t protest, Rick knows he doesn’t truly mind. It gives the other man something to do, and Rick can’t think of many people he’d trust with his children more than Daryl.

The shower’s quick, though he’s got the leisure for a longer, hotter one. He can’t get himself to waste so much clean, clear water. Looking in the mirror afterwards, the gray overtaking his beard strikes him: aging, what a strange idea— that he is alive, but still dying, despite his best efforts. 

When he closes the screen door to the porch, he spots Daryl and Judith, having moved from the other house’s steps to the lawn of Rick’s house. Daryl is on his side, stretched out, like a cat sunning itself, watching Judith as she lies on her stomach and picks at the grass in the ever-intrigued way only babies seem to display.

When Rick feels the sun’s warmth on his skin, on the lawn—  _ his lawn _ — everything somehow feels real again.

Gore splatters onto Rick’s jacket and dribbles down his wrist as Glenn shucks off his imbrued shirt, throwing it haphazardly to the side. The infirmary is an uncomfortable, panicked mix of the worried and the wounded, blood spilling onto rich, dark floorboards.

“Get out, onto the deck, unless you’re about to bleed out!”

Denise’s voice, usually shaky, now strengthened by alarm, rings through the room, making Rick’s head throb. The infirmary fills with mumbled complaints before mostly emptying, and Rick lets out a rough breath, hunching over and letting Glenn’s weight fall off of him and onto the table behind them. As he does, a woman— Rick doesn’t remember her name, but she’s good with a hunting rifle— slumps unconscious to the ground against the opposing wall.

“What happened, Rick?” Denise asks, then spots the woman, blood pooling around her thighs and sliding down the uneven floor. “Shit, help me with her!”

Rick glances at Glenn, who grunts his assent, red-soaked fingers clutching the edge of the table he’d fallen onto.

When Rick goes to help Denise, the world seems to tilt. He is sliding forward, spinning, only righting himself when he grasps her forearm and lets her saddle him with the unnamed woman’s weight.

“Did she get bit?” Denise asks, as they set the woman down onto an older rocking chair Rick’s seen Denise in countless times, reading beat up medical textbooks.

“Yeah, right as we were leaving. We cut it off as quickly as we could, can you fix it?”

Denise lifts the woman’s arm, which now ends in a stump, bandages made of someone’s spare shirt on the way back soaked with blood all the way through. It dribbles steadily between the woman’s legs, creating another crimson pool.

“Maybe, but we’d need thicker bandages than I have here. Possibly a blanket or some towels. And I’d need boiling water.”

Before Rick can respond, the door opens again, and he turns his head to tell whoever is intruding to get some more help.

“The hell happened?” Daryl shouts, instead, stomping across the room, followed quickly by Carl.

“She got bit, we had to cut off her hand. Denise said we need towels and hot water—”

“No, what happened to  _ you?” _ Daryl asks, pulling Rick up from his pained hunch. Rick tries to brush off his help but leaves sticky red handprints on the other man’s vest, the room swaying every time he breathes in. Denise’s words fade in and out— she’s saying something, Rick just can’t decipher it. He spots Glenn pressing his shirt to the wound in his side as he’s led towards the door by Daryl, his son listening attentively to Denise.

In a blur of grey and red, Rick is led out of the house and into the cool night air outside. Daryl walks with him, an arm around his back and over his shoulder, as they near Rick’s home. The porch steps are a mountain in and of themselves, and he’s nearly carried up them, so neither man attempts the trip upstairs to the bedrooms. Instead, Rick falls heavily out of Daryl’s grasp and onto the soft, worn couch in the living room. Moonlight slipping in through the front windows makes oily, swirling shapes in his vision, and the entire situation echoes the time when Rick was incapacitated after the prison’s collapse. Carl had fended for them both, resulting in a brisk escape, and just remembering the memory makes Rick’s chest twist: he should have been stronger, smarter about his wounds. But now he doesn’t have to prop himself up, and he isn’t unconscious, or alone.

“Jesus, man. Tell me what the hell happened.” Daryl interrupts his mournful train of thought, making Rick sigh.

“We were cornered on the training run. ‘Kid set off an alarm trying to get into a safe under the counter of the place we were holed up in, and dozens of ‘em broke out of the post office next door. We got onto the roof to try and wait it out, but lost people getting up. Nestor got bit trying to fend off the walkers when we got back down, and we had to get her hand off ‘right quick.”

“Told you it was risky.” Daryl says with a huff, almost under his breath, but not quite. “You coulda’ taught them to scavenge here.” 

Rick manages a frown, “They can only learn so much in theory. They were gonna have to get out there at some point.”

“Yeah, well. They sure got some experience now.” Daryl sits down on what room Rick has left on the couch, crossing his arms and looking at the ex-cop. Rick doesn’t meet his eyes. He feels accused: the weight of unofficial leadership knotting in his mouth like a bitter herb.

“Maybe you’re right, and it was stupid. But I can’t take it back now.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Daryl uncrosses his arms and makes a stuttering, halted motion, as if to reach for the man next to him. “It ain’t your fault, you couldn’t’a known that kid would set off an alarm. Why was there even electricity?”

“Glen said it probably had its own grid, or a battery, for security purposes, which would explain why it still had some juice left. And still,” he shakes his head, “I should have gone out there beforehand and scouted the area out. Then I would’ve seen the walkers in the post office.”

“You can’t do anything about it now, like you said.”

They sit in silence, the lack of conversation stuffing the air like cotton-balls, textured and heavy in a way that sets Rick’s teeth on edge. The oil slicks blurring his vision begin to fade, the longer he keeps his head still, and eyes closed, avoiding the man whose weight bends the couch cushion at Rick’s hip.

“I’m gonna go back, see if I can help.” Daryl says quietly, after a span of time that Rick can’t quite disentangle. “You ‘n Judes good to stay here awhile? I know Michonne’s out.”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I think Carl put her to bed. Can you turn on the lamp in the corner? I can barely see in here.”

Daryl nods, gets up, and turns the lamp on, before making to leave. On impulse— some freshly born, lonely, wet thing— Rick glances his fingers against Daryl’s, before the other man can walk out of reach. He looks at Rick, face half obscured by hair, let down after a long day. It’s grown lengthier still, beginning to curl at the ends which brush just past his collarbones. Daryl twists his fingers firmly, but briefly, with Rick’s, before walking away, gently closing the screen door.

Fresh vegetables burst forth from soil in Rick’s chest, green shots wrap around his ribs, sweetpeas ripen in his stomach, and wild carrots begin to freckle the inside of his throat.

Fall is brief, and all too soon the distinct chill of what he suspects is September in Virginia frosts over the last of Alexandria’s crops, and begins to make Rick’s bones ache, more than he’s used to.

The ongoing construction in their little sanctuary isn’t halted by the approaching cold. In fact, its pace quickens: the more they can build now, the more fruitful the spring, and the summer after that, and the fall after that, will be. Most hands are cracked and dry, calluses making a for a morbid local fashion statement.

Consequentially, Daryl and Aaron go out less and less. And Daryl, not wanting to intrude on Aaron and Eric’s peaceful relationship— regardless of the younger couple’s insisting— begins to spend most of his time in the Grimes’ shared house. No one minds the intrusion, not even Michonne, who grapples more and more these days with a need for quietness. She spends more time working on security and construction than she does sitting around the house regardless. (Rick loves her, in his own way.)

As it is, Rick’s heart takes to aching.

With the cold comes rationing, and Maggie makes the decision to limit gas to essentials only, meaning they can’t use heaters, for now, at least, before a light layer of snow inevitably wets their firewood. Rick agrees with the choice, but privately bemoans the cold floors and algid showers that accompany it. And he worries for Judith especially, which is foolish, because she’s slept with only the warmth of other bodies, or wrapped in a jacket, on dust and straw and gravel and been just fine. She’s tough— but still, he worries.

As it is, Rick’s heart takes to aching.

Rick tucks his daughter into her soft, fleece blanket, of which he almost envies her, and after making sure she’s too drowsy to miss him, walks downstairs.

“Hey,” he says to Daryl, who is skinning a rabbit and letting bits of flesh and fur fall onto their otherwise clean floors. “We should get a fire going. Might help warm the house up a bit.”

The hunter continues looking at his rabbit, unbothered.

“I don’t want Judith getting cold.” Rick adds, a bit plaintive.

Daryl sighs, sets the half-skinned creature onto the counter behind him, and follows Rick out the front door. The afternoon air is crisp, and feels nice on his face, though he intends to disperse it. Their firewood is stacked at the end of the street, so anyone can access it. Though it isn’t fully dark, it’s getting close, and the dull light of a corn-oil fueled lantern he grabs from the porch is really all that divulges the rough stack of logs.

It’s not planned, then; when he drops the lantern and tangles his fingers with those of the man standing next to them, at the end of the street, before either can grab any firewood.

It’s chilly and growing dark but the hand in his own is dry, and warm, and familiar, though Rick has not had the blessings to learn it as he would like. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even try to squint at Daryl’s face in the dim lantern light. Instead, he presses him gently against the side of the woodshed, careful not to box him in, lest he flee like a cornered animal.

He sets his other hand on Daryl’s hip, the same place that Judith often rests, joyful, and safe. 

The other man doesn’t resist when Rick gives him a soft kiss, chaste and tasteless and  _ good _ . Daryl sighs into his mouth, presses a hand speckled with dried blood to Rick’s chest.

They have a mild winter, followed by a rainy spring.

**Author's Note:**

> Title + Opening quote from Tarfia Faizullah's _Aubade Ending with the Death of a Mosquito._  
>  Unbeta'd.


End file.
